Smallholder Plantations Entrepreneurship Development Programme

Smallholder Plantations Entrepreneurship Development Programme

The programme addresses the needs of rural people resettled on non-viable tea estates, landless people in surrounding villages and small-scale farmers in Moneragala district. These people are among the poorest in Sri Lanka.

To improve their livelihoods and social conditions in a sustainable way, the programme works to:

• improve the productivity of the old tea plantation lands by improving access rights to the land under outgrower schemes, and by supporting crop diversification and increased access to tea markets and services
• support new and diversified rubber-based cultivation by small-scale farmers on an outgrower basis, with private-sector participation and cofinancing

In addition to working towards reducing poverty among vulnerable groups, the programme emphasizes gender equity and empowerment of poor people. It includes a focus on land distribution and another focus on ensuring that poor people have a voice in decision-making at all levels.

The programme includes two subprogrammes:

• the mid-country tea outgrowers subprogramme, which will benefit tea estate settlers and marginalized small-scale tea producers
• the Moneragala rubber smallholders programme, which will benefit poor upland food crop farmers in Moneragala district who want to take up rubber cultivation

IFAD will directly supervise the programme, working in partnership with USAID, the private sector and local banks. The objectives are to:

• strengthen poor people’s capacity and skills and build sustainable outgrower schemes
• improve land tenure among small-scale tea and rubber growers and develop profitable outgrower farming systems
• increase profits for producers by improving post-harvest handling and marketing and public-private partnerships
• develop and expand rural financial services

To sustain activities over the long term, the programme will strengthen poor people’s grass-roots institutions to increase their bargaining power and give them an active role in decision-making. Federations of small self-help groups will mobilize self-help, accumulate and manage savings, mobilize credit and other services, and take collective decisions. They will function as private companies, developing assets and investments, in line with the government’s policy for improving the performance of state plantation enterprises through management reforms and improved efficiency in resource use, rather than through privatization.

Source: IFAD